Jerome Hanna Dean (his actual name is up in the air due to a problem with his birth certificate) was born on January 16, 1910 in Bond, Mississippi. As a sergeant in the army, Dean learned how to pitch, and he began playing for a semi-pro team in San Antonio. While there, a Cardinals scout saw and signed him. He would make his debut by pitching a three-hitter on the last day of the 1930 season, but he went back to the minors the following season. After posting a 25-10 record the first go-round, he won 26 games in 1931, and the Cardinals brought him up for the 1932 campaign.

Dean’s career in the majors was short and sweet (well, bittersweet). In his rookie season, he came out and won 18 games for the the team that had just won the World Series the previous season. From 1933-1936, Dean just dominated NL hitters. During the stretch, he won 102 games, led the league every year in complete games, and pitched over 300 innings in each start. In 1933, he thoroughly dominated Cubs hitters in one game by striking out 17 of them, which became a major-league record. The next spring, Dizzy predicted that he and his brother Paul would win 45 games. He was wrong. They only won 49 (Dizzy 30 – Paul 19). Dizzy led the league in wins, strikeouts, and shutouts, but he finished .2 behind Carl Hubbell for the ERA crown. Dizzy took a small step back the next season and the one after, but his end came in 1937.

By the All-Star Break, Dean was sending hitters back to the dugout at a dizzying pace, but the innings began to wear on him. He asked to skip the All-Star Game, but the Cardinals owner asked him to go. Dean would start the game. Earl Averill smacked a line drive off Dean’s toe, and when the doctor told him it was fractured, Dean responded, “Fractured, hell, the damn thing’s broken!” He tried to come back to soon, and as a result of compensating for his injury, he hurt his arm, losing his fastball. Before the 1938 season, he was traded to the Cubs. He tried a change-up and slow curve, but he wasn’t the same and quit to become a broadcaster in 1941. As an announcer, he frequently criticized Browns pitchers, so he decided to pitch himself. He would throw 4 shutout innings, but that was it.

Dean was an amazing pitcher during his early years, and he let people know it. Besides predicting the number of wins, Dean made other boasts. When he and Paul pitched both ends of a double-header, Paul threw a no-hitter, and Dizzy said, “If I’d a-known you was gonna throw a no-hitter, I’d a-thrown one too!” Later, Dizzy said he could strike Vince DiMaggio (older brother of Joe) four times in a fame. After doing it the first three times, DiMaggio popped the ball behind home plate. Dean screamed at his catcher to drop it, and after the catcher did, Dean struck DiMaggio out. Dean always said, “It ain’t boasting if you can back it up.”

In 1953, Dean would be elected to the Hall of Fame with 209 of 264 (79.2%) votes, giving him something else to brag about.